


Everlasting Light

by Anonim



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, alternating pov, secondary oc, this fic only recognises the RE2 Remake's canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-11-06 05:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17933819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonim/pseuds/Anonim
Summary: They might have escaped the underground facility, but that didn't mean they were out of the woods yet. After the adrenaline that had been keeping them alive fades, all that's left is exhaustion and a road that seems to stretch on forever. Leon, Claire and Sherry still have a long way to go before they're safe.





	1. The Long and Winding Road

Conversation had died down a few minutes after they had left the train tunnel, as the effects of the adrenaline that had been pumping through their veins for the past several hours wore off, and the condition of their bodies caught up with them. They had been walking for a good part of an hour, with blistered feet and sore muscles protesting against each step they took, providing a white noise of pain to their seemingly endless escape from Raccoon City.

Leon felt like his shoulder was on fire, while the soft breeze against the sweat on his skin and his still damp-from-the-sewers clothes made him shiver uncontrollably. He was on autopilot, clutching his left arm to his torso and looking at the ground before his feet, while his thoughts raced away from him and back to Raccoon City.

It all felt like a nightmare to him, one that turned into a very boring pointless dream, never letting him truly wake up from it. A sudden assault of images of the rotting, walking corpses he had to shoot, the creatures that hunted him, beings he had to set on fire, a woman in red slipping through his fingers, sent a shiver down his spine. It made him stop in his tracks and give his head a shake, as if by doing that he could get rid of these images.

It took him a considerable effort of willpower to force them to the back of his mind, where they’d either go ignored forever or be addressed later, in a much more suitable environment.

He wasn’t about to freak out on Claire and Sherry, not when they had been through the same hell he has, and they weren't complaining.

‘Leon? Are you alright?’

For the first time in the past hour, Leon looked up from the ground, right into Claire’s eyes, and he could see worry in the crease of her brows, exhaustion in the crescent-moon-lines of her lower eyelids, sadness in the sunken outline of her eye sockets, and relief and hope in the shine that created a highlight above her pupils.

He followed her gaze when it shifted from his own to his left shoulder, and saw that the bandages had been all but soaked in red, their original colour almost unrecognisable.

‘That doesn’t look good,’ she said, trailing off, seemingly lost in thought. After a few seconds, she grabbed Sherry’s hand again, and Leon took that as their cue to keep walking. ‘We need to take a look at that as soon as we find somewhere to rest.’

Leon adjusted his grip on his bad arm, and tried to look nonchalant through the undeniable pain he was in. Claire was not fooled, not that he was putting this facade on for her.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he muttered, and was surprised at how much weaker his voice had sounded than he anticipated. He spared a glance towards Claire just long enough to see her brows crease again with that look of worry, before redirecting his gaze back to the ground in embarrassment.

‘What happened to your shoulder, anyway?’ he heard her ask.

‘I was shot, of all things,’ he replied, this time in control of the strength of his voice.

‘ _Shot?_ ’

Claire’s incredulous look was as amusing as they came, and after what they’d been through, the bar for what entertained Leon was pretty low. He felt the corner of his lips curl up into a half-hearted smirk.

Then he saw Sherry’s wide eyed stare at him, and it disappeared completely.

‘It’s… a long story,’ he said, letting just enough of his exhaustion be audible in his voice that Claire would get the message. There was no way he was going to let Sherry know that it was her – now dead – mother that had shot him.

He’d only met her about an hour ago, but pure instinct and empathy had endeared her to him almost right away. A kid her age, going through the same shit he had, plus the death of her parents, all in one night…

He saw a lot of counselling and anxiety in her future.

To be quite honest with himself, that’s what he saw in his own future as well. That is, if they survived this night.

Now, that would be a riot. Escaping the horrors of Raccoon City just to die of dehydration or what have you on their way back to civilization. He had to admit, if they managed to do the former, then the latter should be a breeze.

As they continued trailing the asphalt, he wondered how long it would take for the rude driver that had passed them earlier to realise he was driving into Hell on Earth. Perhaps they should have tried to do a better job trying to flag him down, if for nothing else to warn him of what awaited him in the way he was heading.

His eyes felt dry, and hid eyelids heavy. When his mind wasn’t preoccupied with fighting back nightmare images, it teased him with thoughts of soft, imaginary beds and warm blankets, and pillows that were just the right size…

Suddenly, the sun was higher up in the sky, and Claire’s face was above his, one of her hands at the back of his head, the other covering his forehead, feeling very cold against it.

Odd. He didn't remember how he got there.

‘Are you with us, Leon?’ she asked, and from the way she sounded he could tell this wasn’t the first time she was asking the question. Sherry’s face popped up opposite to Claire’s, as it appeared she was kneeling on the ground on the other side of Leon.

‘Hmm?’ was all Leon could muster at the moment, his mind much too preoccupied with trying to figure out what had happened to actually try to formulate proper answer to her question. It seemed that was all she needed to know, though, because she didn’t ask again, and instead looked up at Sherry. Leon could almost see the gears turning furiously in her head. He knew what she was thinking, because he would have been thinking the same in her situation.

_What am I going to do?_

He thought about telling them to go on without him, to get help and come back for him later, but he didn’t want to say it, for two reasons. For one, he knew they wouldn’t like that idea. On the other hand, the thought of being left alone in the middle of nowhere, weak as he was, still all too close to Raccoon City – after all, if they could walk this distance, so could the zombies – frightened him.

He pulled himself together, stood up, and continued walking with them towards safety. At least, that’s what he wanted to do, but it seemed his body was not in a mood to cooperate.

The way he was feeling was much like one of those exhausting gym classes where at the end, when you sat down, you just couldn’t get back up, and getting back up required above-average power of will.

Claire had grabbed him by his good arm and started pulling him up, which provided him with just enough support that he could stand up, and, with a significant portion of his bodyweight now redirected to Claire - despite his efforts to stay upright by himself - they started walking again, now at a much slower pace.

Leon felt terrible about this situation, but he couldn't exactly just push Claire away. That didn’t change the fact that he was positive she wasn’t less exhausted than he was, and that she didn’t deserve to have to carry around his dead weight all through the home stretch.

He was surprised to feel another hand at his back and side, and glanced down to see Sherry by his other side, smartly avoiding his bad arm and staring forward with an uncharacteristically mature look of determination in her eyes. It seemed she sensed him looking at her, because she looked back up at him, and gave him a reassuring smile.

‘Don’t worry, Leon,’ she said, gripping the excess of his shirt at her hands, ‘we’ll take care of you.’

Leon’s heart was full as he looked at her. In the direct sunlight, Sherry’s blond hair seemed to shine, and in his eyes, despite the muck that was caked on her skin, she looked like a little angel.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He felt like he’s never felt more grateful than he did then, for Claire’s unwavering support and determination, and for Sherry’s light and positivity. They really did make him feel like everything was going to be alright.

Maybe not soon enough, but eventually.


	2. Puncture Repair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive, my friends!

Claire felt the urge to change her method of breathing from the silent, automatic type to breathing in with one swearword and breathing out with the next, but she wasn’t the type to complain. Who was she to complain, anyway? She wasn’t the one with a likely infected wound on her shoulder, and she wasn’t about to let Leon just die out there. She’d only met him about half a day ago, but somehow felt like she’s known him for years, despite not actually knowing anything about him.

Well, she knew that he was a cop. She knew that he had a heart of gold, and that he wore his heart on his sleeve, and that he was one tough son of a bitch if he’s made it this far with that hole in his shoulder.

She smiled. By her own logic, she, too, was a “tough son of a bitch.” And so was Sherry.

She adjusted her grip on Leon’s arm as she walked, and tried to find the girl on the other side of Leon, but she could only see her hand from her angle.

‘We’re like a team now, Sherry,’ she said, beaming. ‘And teams have names. I was thinking something like “Badass Mofos.”’

Sherry giggled, obviously tickled by her wanton use of naughty words, which was exactly the kind of reaction she was going for.

‘Claire, you can’t say that!’ Sherry said, between two bouts of giggling.

‘Yeah, Claire, what the crap?’ Leon said, faking incredulity. This made Claire want to giggle as well, which she tried to suppress for comedic purposes, but that just resulted in an inelegant snort instead of a much more respectable, girly giggle. She admired his ability to play off of her despite the – no doubt – extremely distracting pain he must be feeling.

Sherry gasped.

‘Leon! You’re doing it, too!’ Claire could hear the smile in her voice, followed by some more laughter.

‘I have yet to hear a better idea than mine,’ she said. For the next few minutes, Sherry tried coming up with team names, running them by Claire, the two giggling about said team name, and trying to come up with an even better one.

After a while, half-carrying Leon like she had been started to get harder and harder. He must have been able to tell she was struggling, because he made a renewed effort to shift more of his body weight to his own feet.

‘We need to rest, Claire,’ he said, somehow sounding even more out of breath than she was, which worried her. Claire slowed down and then stopped to look around. She spotted a large rock, not too far off the road, that seemed to provide just enough shade from them.

Although it was well past summer, and it had rained through most of the night, by morning the sun had become so intense that it rivalled any old summer day.

She helped Leon sit down by the rock, then straightened out, hands on her hips, looking back towards the road. If she kept an eye out, she’d be able to spot a car heading their way early enough that she’d have time to run back to the road and flag it down.

‘Sherry,’ she said, getting on one knee before the girl and putting her hands on her arms. ‘I need you to keep your eyes on the road while I take a look at Leon’s shoulder, ok? If you see a car, tell me immediately.’

Sherry just nodded, seemingly happy with getting a task to do. While Claire knelt down next to Leon, she climbed the rock to get a better vantage point, and pulled Claire’s jacket over her head for shade.

Claire sighed as she took a good look at Leon, who seemed halfway passed out. The locks of his sandy blond hair that weren’t sticking to his forehead with sweat hung in his half-lidded eyes, and layers of grime, dried blood and who knows what else, fought and failed to conceal his boyish features. His lips were paler than usual and parted slightly.

She realised she’d been staring, and quickly shifted her eyes to the side. Leon didn’t seem to have noticed.

‘Right! Let’s take a look at your shoulder,’ she said, reaching up to the makeshift bandages that covered the bullet wound. She peeled the blood soaked rags away carefully, which became harder and harder to do the closer she got to the lowest layer. Dried blood from the bullet hole clung to the fabric, and Leon couldn’t stifle the whimper that disturbing the sensitive area brought out of him.

Claire bit her lip as she finished removing the bandages. Blood covered most of the skin around the wound, making it hard to determine just how bad things were. She didn’t have much water left, especially not water that she’d feel safe cleaning his wounds with, but she did have one last portion of the green herbs she’d been using to treat her own wounds through the night. It wouldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing. And it was all she had.

She unwrapped the tissue she kept the herbs in and pressed it to his shoulder, eliciting a string of hisses from him, and started rebinding the bandages around his shoulders, as she had nothing to replace them with. When she was done, she tapped his chest lightly and gave him an apologetic look.

‘I’m sorry, Leon, it’s all I can do at the moment,’ she said. Leon didn’t reply right away, and he had his face turned away, eyelids pressed together, biting his lip. Claire’s heart broke for him. There was nothing she wanted more in that moment than to help ease his pain. She’s been helping him for most of the past couple of hours, yet she felt helpless.

Leon’s expression finally relaxed, and he looked at Claire with tired eyes and a ghost of a smile.

‘It’s ok, Claire,’ he said, his voice barely over a whisper. ‘Thank you.’

Claire pulled her lips to what she thought was a reassuring smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. The dam that held her emotions at bay, all the fear and panic and sorrow that collected through the night, threatened to break, but she held it together. _Just a few hours more,_ she thought, _that’s all you have to take._

She sat down by his side, her shoulder pressed against his good one, and focused her attention on the road. A few minutes later, Sherry climbed down to sit on her other side in the shade, the red leather jacket crumpled up in her grip.

A soft breeze caught the loose bangs of Claire’s hair, and she took a deep breath, which she immediately regretted.

‘Oh man, we sure stink, don’t we?’ She said, scrunching her nose. She heard Sherry sniff around and then huff indignantly.

‘Oh no, I’ll have to take a _huge_ shower!’ She whined. ‘I don’t like showers!’

Claire smiled. She was glad that, despite everything, Sherry still behaved like she should. Like a child.

‘Trust me, after this, you’ll learn to appreciate them,’ she said, taking her eyes off the road for only long enough to ruffle Sherry’s hair.

‘Ew, get your dirty hand out of my hair!’ The attempted seriousness of Sherry’s words was marred by the laughter she was clearly trying – and failing – to hide as she swatted Claire’s hand away. ‘Nasty!’

Claire laughed sincerely, surprised by her own ability to make light of their situation still. She turned back towards the road, and stood up almost immediately.

A single car was driving down the road, blurred by the heat rising off the asphalt, kicking up a soft, continuous cloud of dirt behind it.

‘Stay here, Sherry,’ Claire said, putting her hand on the handle of her gun as she ran back towards the road and started waving with her other arm extended as far as possible. ‘Please don’t be an asshole, please don’t be an asshole, please…’

Now that the car got closer, she could make out green marks against a white body, and a big old star across its hood. It seemed to get closer as it approached, and Claire dropped her hand from her gun when she realised what kind of car it was.

Across its side, written in large green letters, was the following word:

_SHERIFF._


	3. Grace Under Pressure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To get an idea of what Sheriff Brown looks like, Picture Olivia Colman in a sheriff's uniform, with a region-appropriate American accent.

Sheriff Brown spotted the girl as soon as she started running towards the road. It didn’t take a large leap in logic to conclude that she was running to flag her down. The girl was yet another part of a larger puzzle that Brown had been putting together, and she was growing increasingly worried about the larger picture.

Contact with Raccoon City cut off days ago, and while at first she thought it might be attributed to simple technical difficulties, the longer the blackout lasted, the more alarms went off in her head. That was when she decided to investigate it personally.

She hadn’t come across any traffic coming _from_ the city, or towards it, as a matter of fact. And now, this girl in the middle of nowhere, but still close to Raccoon City, is trying to flag her down.

The girl reached the road before Sheriff Brown got close enough, and just like she thought she would, started waving to her. She slowed her car down and rolled to a halt just by the girl, which was when she got a closer look at her.

What she saw was the last confirmation she needed to know that something terrible has happened in Raccoon City.

The girl seemed to be in her late teens or early twenties, and she was covered in grime. Unmistakable blood stained her hand, and patched her clothes, which looked like they had seen better days. She noticed the girl pulling her hand away from a thigh holster almost too quickly, but her hand was empty, and the handle of a gun still poked out of the holster.

She was out of breath, and palpable alarm tugged at her brows. Sheriff Brown rolled down her window, and when the girl leaned closer, the potent and characteristic stench of a sewer hit her nose.

‘Please help us!’ The girl said, sounding like she had trouble getting the words out, as if she didn’t know what to say first. ‘My friend, he needs help. I- I’ve got a little girl with me as well, and, and- ‘

‘Slow down, Miss,’ Sheriff Brown said, trying to calm the girl down with the calmness of her own voice. ‘What is your name?’ The girl pulled back a bit and took a deep breath, seemingly responsive to her technique.

‘Claire.’

‘Claire, I’m Sheriff Angela Brown. Are you coming from Raccoon City?’ The Sheriff felt she already knew the answer, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

‘Yeah, and you need to turn around!’ Claire seemed to be getting erratic again. ‘The city is a death trap! No one can make it alone, not even a cop. My friend, he’s R.P.D., and he needs medical attention immediately!’

Sheriff Brown took a second to unravel the string of new information she was provided, and when she couldn’t ignore the urgency in the girl’s tone anymore, she stepped out of her car.

‘Where’s your friend?’

Claire almost jumped as she stepped back away from the road and waved for Sheriff Brown to follow.

‘He’s by that rock, with Sherry,’ she said, power walking towards the rock she pointed out, and Sheriff Brown could see outline of two people in the shade.

A man in a mangled, but unmistakable police uniform sat motionless against the rock, his head slumped forward, sandy blond hair falling forward to conceal his face. Next to him, a little girl in a red jacket sprung up from the ground towards Claire, grabbing her arms, appearing as if she was on the verge of crying.

‘Claire, he won’t wake up!’ She gasped, giving a shake to Claire’s arms, who was by the man’s side in a second. Sheriff Brown noted the extremely red, extremely dirty bandage on his shoulder, and knelt down before him to take a closer look. He was grimy and smattered with bruises and scrapes, much like Claire, along with a nasty black and blue bruising across his throat that looked like the mark of a very large hand.

Claire cupped his cheeks in her hand and raised his head, granting Sheriff Brown a better look at his face. She was taken aback by how young he also seemed to be. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty years old himself, yet he was clad in a police uniform and looked like he was dragged out of hell by the girl who was trying to wake him.

After a few moments, his eyelids twitched and fluttered half-open.

‘Claire?’ he breathed. He sounded about as bad as he looked. That’s why it surprised Sheriff Brown when as soon as he set eyes on her, he pushed himself back against the rock, almost hitting his head in the process, blue eyes now wide open, wild and trained at her. He was grasping for something at his waist.

‘Leon!’ Claire yelped, lurching forward to grab both of the young man’s arms and put herself between Sheriff Brown and him. ‘It’s alright, she’s- she’s not one of them.’ Brown could hear the young man’s raspy, uneven panting settling down as Claire replaced one of her hands on the back of his neck, touching her forehead to his and muttering softly to him. When his breathing settled, Claire pulled away and seemed to wipe her eye with her hand.

‘Let’s get him to the car,’ Brown finally said, after a few moments. Claire nodded, and gripped Leon’s good arm, pulling at it as she slowly rose from her feet. Sheriff Brown reached behind him to get leverage on his back, helping Claire pull him up. He was mostly dead weight, barely able to keep his feet below him as the two dragged him to the Sheriff’s car.

When they reached it, Claire insisted on sitting in the back seat with Leon, which left the little girl, Sherry, riding shotgun. Despite her clear worry for her friend, she seemed to be excited to ride in a police car, and stared wide-eyed at all the equipment that covered the dashboard of the car, as well as the several modifications that distinguished it from a normal, civilian transport.

In the back seat, Claire had her arm around a half-conscious Leon, who was pulled to rest on her lap.

Sheriff Brown knew that this young man’s well-being took priority over satisfying her own desire to see for herself what happened in Raccoon City, and so as she accepted that she would have to settle for hearing it from Claire as she turned the car around and began driving back to where she came from.

‘What happened to you?’ She asked glancing at Claire through the rear-view mirror.

‘Raccoon City is overrun by… by…’ Claire trailed off, seemingly at odds with herself. Sheriff Brown waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts and start over.

‘I was heading to Raccoon City to visit my brother,’ she said, much calmer this time. ‘I stopped at a gas station to make a phone call, and that’s when I heard a noise. It was the middle of the night, and the gas station seemed pretty much empty, so I went to investigate, and that’s when I saw… _them._ ’

‘They were people and they were… rotting, and- and- they weren’t “aware.” They couldn’t speak, or think, and they were attacking anyone they saw, except for each other. And one of them was coming at me, so I drew my pistol and I fired… again and again, and it just kept walking towards me, really slowly. I managed to kill it, and that’s when I met Leon. He was at the gas station, too, and we were being surrounded by these… _things_. They weren’t people anymore, just mindless monsters. They were infected by some sort of bioweapon, but we didn’t know that back then. So we escaped the gas station, and drove towards the city…’

Claire went on to explain to her how the two got separated, and how they arrived separately at the Police Station, but couldn’t join each other yet. She told her about how she met Sherry in the facility underneath the police station, about the monsters she had to fight and Chief Irons’ evil deeds, how she got to the sewers where she got separated from Sherry, but met her obsessed mother, how she came across the secret Umbrella lab deep beneath the city and even weirder creatures and monsters. She told her about Sherry getting infected, and having to find the cure to save her life, and how everything went up in flames after that as she escaped with the train, where she was finally reunited with Leon.

All this while acknowledging how crazy it all sounded, but pleading with her to believe her, because there was nothing but death waiting for her in that Godforsaken city.

Sheriff Brown couldn’t decide if she believed her. By all accounts, what she told her was unbelievable, and terrifying, and to be completely honest with herself, she didn’t _want_ to believe it, because it went against everything she believed about the world.

But at the same time, it all added up. They  _did_ smell like a sewer, Leon _was_ a police man, if only a rookie, and Sherry confirmed every beat of the story she could have also known about, sometimes even surprised by Claire’s account of the things that happened, this being the she heard about them, too. 

If only Leon were awake to fill in the gaps. All the Sheriff had to work with when it came to him was his irrational reaction when he saw her, and the state he was in. He was clearly traumatised, and Claire herself seemed to be hanging on by a thread. Sherry, amazingly, seemed to be least affected of them, despite having gone through what was probably an extremely traumatizing experience for an adult, let alone a child.

Potent silence filled the police car after Claire finished telling her about the details of the virus, and both she and Sherry started dozing off not too long after.

The poor things. Angela couldn’t _not_ believe what they were saying. _I wish I was lying,_ Claire had told her, absent-mindedly stroking Leon’s hair, seemingly more for her own comfort than anything else.

Angela thought of her own son, who was just a few years younger than Leon and Claire. His hair was darker than Leon’s, he was chubbier, and his features were admittedly less angular and well-proportioned, but still, there was a parallel to be drawn there that she couldn’t ignore.

A maternal kind of determination took over Angela’s thoughts. She’d help these kids. She’d do whatever she had to, to make sure they were safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where this is going. Where should this be going, guys? I'd love to hear your thoughts. See you in the next chapter!


	4. Dirty Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be alarmed by the blantant disregard of the established structure of one POV per chapter, it happens for the purposes of keeping the momentum of the story. ;)

Sherry was having to look up at everyone. Adults were everywhere, and they came and went and stepped out of the way, and they were all above her.

Except Leon. He was just at her eye level, lying on a stretcher that was being pushed by a couple of nurses in white scrubs, while she, Claire and Ms. Brown jogged next to it. Apparently, they were taking Leon to the “ER” room.

She only had a vague idea of what that was. Something about emergency and… something else.

She only realised she had been gripping Leon’s one intact shirtsleeve like her life depended on it when Claire grabbed her from behind to pull her away from the stretcher as it was rolled through the doors to the ER.

Sherry turned around and buried her face in Claire’s shirt. Claire wrapped her arms around her gently, and rocked from side to side, patting her back soothingly. Sherry didn’t cry, she didn’t whine or scream, even though she wanted to. She was too tired for that.

‘He’ll be there for a while,’ she heard Ms. Brown say. Sherry liked Ms. Brown; she was kind, and understanding, and she was _The Sheriff._ Which made her very cool in her eyes. ‘How about we get you two to my place, where you can clean up and get some nice, clean clothes, and then we come back and see how he is?’

Sherry felt conflicted. She would have loved to do that, but at the same time, she didn’t want to leave Leon. It was a hard choice, and so she looked up at Claire. Whatever Claire says, goes, but she wasn’t saying anything either, seemingly deep in thought as she stared at the ground behind Sherry.

‘I understand you don’t want to leave your friend alone, but he’ll be safe here,’ Ms. Brown said. ‘He’s surrounded by people whose job is to help him. I’m sure he’d understand.’

Claire sighed, a sad smile settling on her lips.

‘Of course he would,’ she muttered, and the only reason Sherry could hear her was because she was still holding onto Claire. ‘Alright, we’ll come with you, but… don’t you have to work?’

It was a sincere question, and Sherry turned to Ms. Brown with her own, quizzical look. The Sheriff just chuckled, waving her hand dismissively.

‘That’s what deputies are for,’ she said, and held a hand out for Sherry to take. ‘Come on, let’s get you girls home.’

* * *

 

Sherry instantly liked Ms. Brown’s house. It was relatively small, and every bit of space was used for something. There were no bare walls, just pictures or shelves, and everything was colourful and warm and inviting.

Ms. Brown was the last one to walk in, dumping her keys in a wooden bowl next to the door. She led them to the kitchen, and that was when Sherry realised just how hungry and thirsty she really was. She downed the large glass of water she was offered in a matter of seconds, and wolfed down several cookies that Ms. Brown claimed she had saved for a rainy day. Claire, while clearly just as hungry as she was, exercised some more, polite restraint with her meal.

After they were done, Ms. Brown showed them the shower, and told them that she’d go searching for some clothes they could borrow while they washed theirs. She also explained that her son, Patrick, was in school and wouldn’t return until late afternoon, much like her husband, Stu, who was busy running a fishing supplies store.

She also said that she might have some of her son’s older clothes lying around somewhere, which might fit Sherry better than anything in her own wardrobe, but it might take a while to find those. Regardless, Claire let Sherry go first, telling her that she expected her to spend _at least_ ten minutes in that shower.

Claire had been right when she said she would learn to appreciate showers after this. She hadn’t realised just how sticky and dirty she truly was until she stepped out of that shower smelling like flowers instead of sweat and garbage. She put on the oversized, pink bathrobe Ms. Brown said she could wear until she found her some fitting clothes, and stepped out of the bathroom and into the cool, refreshing air of the hallway.

Claire was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was Ms. Brown who greeted her with a folded-up, baby-blue, collared shirt, some khaki shorts, and a pair of flip-flops that were one size too big. She accepted them graciously and went back to the bathroom to change.

Everything was already a lot better now that she was clean and fed. She barely noticed Claire stepping into the bathroom as she stepped into the living room and plopped down face-first on the couch, and immediately fell asleep.

* * *

 

Claire stared at the ground and watched all the grime and diluted blood disappear down the drain with the water that washed her skin. The discolouration created almost hypnotic, swirling patters by her feet that kept her attention on the here and now, and away from the there and then.

It didn’t last long, however. Memories of those creatures grabbing her, scraping her, throwing her to the ground, pulling her through sewage and dirt and who knows what else… their ghosts were on her skin, no matter how much she scrubbed and washed herself. Bruises and scrapes and cuts revealed themselves all across her body as the muck faded away.

Claire sank to the ground, wrapping her arms around herself, and addressed the dam. _Now,_ she thought. _Now you can release the waterworks._

She turned her head towards the flow of water, eyelids pressed together tight, and let the water wash away her tears.

Her quiet sobs, drowned out by the sound of running water, gradually turned into light laughter, as she let all the angst and self-pity out of her system, creating room for relief, hope and comfort.

She was no longer trapped in Raccoon City. She had survived, made it to safety, it was all in the past, and now she could move on. She didn’t have to be afraid of crossing hallways, stepping through doors and rounding corners, because those monsters weren’t here, they were far behind her, and they’d never catch up.

She took a deep breath and let it out with a smile on her face.

The paranoid little voice in her head that insisted that she was still in danger, that there was nowhere to run from the monsters, and it was only a matter of time before she’d have to draw her gun again, was forcefully pushed to the back of her mind, where she hoped it would die.

She finished washing up and dried herself, wiping away the condensation on the mirror to get a good look at herself.

A woman with dark, damp hair framing her bare face stared back at her, stoic and strong, mature beyond her years. She looked like a different person altogether, but she was also very much the same.  The new her has seen some shit.

She donned the loose, purple blouse and black, ankle-length pants that Angela – she insisted she call her that when she handed her the clothes – had given her, and once outside, found out that they had the exact same shoe size, which meant she could borrow a pair of flats that Angela claimed she never even wore, so she wouldn’t miss them.

Back in the living room, Sherry was sound asleep on the couch, and Angela’s voice could be heard from the bedroom at the end of the hall. She had told her she needed to call her husband and her offices to explain some – not too much, of course – of the situation.

Claire bit the inside of her cheeks. She never _did_ find out where exactly in Europe Chris was. It was all awfully vague, anyway, just saying he was “in Europe.” That could mean anything. There was a whole rabbit-hole’s worth of just _wrong_ with it all, but she couldn’t let herself go down it.

Besides, there was something more urgent she had to do; someone whose location was known to her, and who might wake up any minute and find Sherry and her nowhere to be seen, and worry, because if she learned anything about him over the course of the past 24 hours, it was that he was _that_ kind of person.

And she loved that about him, she realised, smiling to herself.

She waited for Angela to finish her phone call before she roused Sherry, and asked their host to take them back to the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to keep updating this often for as long as I can. Of course, with the rate I keep getting comments on this fic, you guys make it hard to lose enthusiasm about continuing it! :)
> 
> Some of you might have realised this already, but the title of this fic is referring to a Black Keys song of the same title. Go give it a listen if you can! :)


	5. The Night Will Always Win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The night will always win  
> The night has darkness on its side."
> 
> ~ The Night Will Always Win, Elbow
> 
> Enjoy!

Leon was disoriented at first when he awoke, and he didn’t remember to open his eyes right away.

He found it odd, to be lying in a soft, warm bed, smelling of disinfectant instead of anything putrid. It didn’t feel right, and he wasn’t immediately sure why. But then he remembered, or at least he thought he did, because as he lay there, in a comfortable bed, it felt almost as likely that what he thought were memories was just one long, convoluted nightmare that had finally come to an end. A numb ache in his left shoulder suggested otherwise.

His eyes fluttered open. At first, he could only make out colours, but as his vision sharpened he realised that the bright blur of ambiguous, pale hues framed by grey was a window that faced away from the sun, and the grey was the colour the white walls appeared to be in the shadow.

He felt a weight pushing down on the mattress beside him, lightly touching his good arm in places, and heard quiet, regular breathing from the lump. He turned his head towards it.

Sherry, dressed in an unfamiliar, light blue polo, was sleeping peacefully next to him, somehow managing to fit into the narrow space between him and the side of the bed without squashing him.

Peering to his other side, where he felt a hand in his hand, he saw a mess of damp, chestnut hair falling over the crook of the arm that Claire had folded beneath her head before she fell asleep. Her shoulders rose and fell serenely in the dull light of the afternoon sun.

This was peace, he noticed with a sigh.

He was content, then and there, letting his heavy eyelids flutter closed, feeling safer than he had felt in what seemed like two long, with a beautiful girl holding his hand to his left and a little angel sleeping peacefully to his right.

When he opened his eyes again, what felt like a second later, everything was dark and there was no sign of Claire or Sherry.

Leon’s heart clenched, and he sat upright in a flash, ignoring the protest of his aching shoulder. He heard the steady beeping of the heart monitor next to him grow louder as he looked around the room, whipping his head from side to side as he double and triple checked each corner, never trusting the apparent safety of his surroundings.

The night breeze ruffled the trees outside, the sound of leaves rustling against each other seeping in through the open window of his room, and he couldn’t decide if it was calming like a peaceful, summer evening, or ominous, like the beginnings of a storm.

Outside the room, he heard the clacking of footsteps, slow and steady, and the well-practiced sense fear he grew so familiar with drowned out the rational voice in his head that told him that he was in a hospital, far from Raccoon City, and that he was safe.

Leon backed away to the far corner of his bed, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping an arm around them as the heartrate monitor kicked up even more, the rhythm of his breathing synching up with the beeps.

The urge to call out “who’s there?,” battling the fear of being heard by something sinister brought irregular pauses to his breathing, and without even realising it, he clasped a shaking hand to his mouth in an attempt to muffle the sound of his breaths.

With the combined noise of the pumping of his veins in his ear and the synchronous beeping of the machine next to his bed, as well as the mess of irrational thoughts swirling around in his fever-addled mind, he failed to notice that the clacking footsteps had faded into the distance, and were replaced by lighter, but faster ones.

The door he had been staring at opened without a warning, and Leon cried out soundlessly, almost falling off the bed when a nurse stepped in, appearing only as a dark silhouette against the lit corridor.

‘Is everything- oh my!’ The nurse gasped, flicking on the lights and rushing to Leon’s side, who had at that point started hyperventilating. She had a hand against his forehead and another pressing down gently on his shoulder, trying to get him to lie back.

Leon’s vision became blurry, and he instinctively tried to get the nurse’s hands off of him as he pushed himself as far away from her as he could, against the wall, vaguely aware of the words of protest that came out of his mouth between gasps of air.

Soon, more people flooded into the room, and he couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening, any of the words or sounds he could hear or the blurred shapes that entered and left his tunnelling vision.

Then, everything faded away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, it's a short one, but for good reason. Stay tuned!


	6. Trust the Sun

Claire untangled her legs from the bedsheets and rolled to her back, joining her fingers on top of her stomach as she stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t read the clock on the wall in the dark, but she knew she’d been trying to sleep for hours now.

The room was paid for by Mr. Brown, who insisted it was the least he could do after him, his wife and Claire decided that it was best if she and Sherry stayed elsewhere, as they didn’t want to intrude on their personal lives, and they have helped them so much already.

It was a small, cosy, rustic motel at the edge of the town’s commercial district, a short walk away from the hospital. It was cheap, but for Claire and Sherry, it was more than enough. It was where Angela had taken them after visiting hours were over at the hospital, insisting that they needed their rest as much as Leon did, and that falling asleep in the chair next to his hospital bed didn’t count.

Sherry was asleep on the bed next to her. She had been powering through the day like a champ, but it was only a matter of time until she crashed, being as weakened as her mother said she would be after her infection. After falling asleep on the Browns’ couch, she was constantly drowsy and basically fell asleep as soon as she wasn’t vertical. The only time she seemed to be mostly awake was during dinner, when she was told she could order anything she wanted, in a diner that had an exceptionally extensive dessert menu. The sugar rush kept her up for a couple of hours after dinner, which they spent watching TV and chattering about anything but the previous night. She fell asleep while Claire was telling her about how she got her motorcycle.

That was hours ago.

Now, Claire was alone with her thoughts, and for what felt like the hundredth time that evening, her conversation with the Doctor replayed in her mind.

_‘With some time and plenty of rest, Mr. Kennedy should make a full recovery,’_ _Doctor Carter, a balding, fifty-something year old man of African descent, had told her. His tone shifted from “good news” to “deeply worried” as he continued. ‘However, before I let you go, Miss Redfield… There’s more than just the bullet wound, I’m sure you knew this. He has different degrees of bruising and scrapes from head to toe, and we suspect that he might have suffered several falls, or collisions with hard surfaces, and there are even signs of choking around his throat. So, I have to ask… What happened to him?’_

_Claire bit her lip. The doctor had seen Leon’s uniform, torn as it was, and he still had his identification with him, all of which connected him with the Raccoon City Police Department. She was sure the Doctor was already aware of_ something _being wrong with Raccoon City, and she also knew why he asked, and that he was trying to help, but she just couldn’t answer completely honestly._

_‘I… I don’t know,’ she said. It was half true: she didn’t know what exactly happened to him. She could guess, but she didn’t know the details, and she couldn’t tell anything to Doctor Carter, no matter how much she wanted to, because she knew how it all sounded. Even if he did end up believing her, who’s to say word wouldn’t get out? There were just too many unknowns, and too many risks involved with telling the whole truth. ‘He was fine when we first got separated. We only got reunited hours after that, and by then he was already like this.’_

_‘You also seem to have a few scrapes and bruises of your own, Miss Redfield. Are you sure you don’t want us to examine you?’ Doctor Carter seemed sincere and legitimately concerned about Claire’s well-being, which made her feel even worse about holding back on him._

_‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you, I just need a rest,’ she rumbled, awkwardly rubbing her arm as she tried to keep eye contact with the doctor._

_They were the only ones in Leon’s hospital room, aside from of course the patient himself and a fast-asleep Sherry. Even so, Doctor Carter leaned forward, and continued talking with a low tone._

_‘Miss Redfield, I can tell something troubles you. You know what this looks like, how many questions your appearance has stirred up… Sheriff Brown has already told me how she found you, but she couldn’t tell me anything about Raccoon City. She said all she knew is that something horrible has happened. Please, help me understand.’_

_Claire looked down at her interlaced fingers in her lap, chewing on her lower lip as she tried to come up with a battleplan. It was just a few hours ago that she dished everything to Angela, but that was different. The urgency of the situation, Leon’s deteriorating condition… It was just a few hours ago, but it felt like a day had passed. She had been panicking, or at least, coming off of a panic, and it was all so fresh. Now, she had the time to calm down, she was clean, she had a change of clothes, and Leon was stable. Whereas then she just wanted to get everything off her chest, now she dreaded having to retell that story._

_‘I can’t,’ she muttered, and she could feel her throat constrict as she repressed a sob. ‘I want to help, Doctor Carter, I really do, but… I just can’t.’_

_She could barely hold together a stern look on her face as she looked up, the corners of her lips quivering. A single tear escaped her guard, but she didn’t break eye contact with Doctor Carter._

In the motel room, Claire turned to her side, grasping at her pillow. She had been so tired back then, and still was, that she was convinced that, had she been in a clearer state of mind, she would have been able to give the doctor at least _something_ to work with. She couldn’t help but mull over how she had handled that situation, how it might have gone better, and maybe even helped Leon out somehow, if only…

No, she couldn’t get caught up in “if only-s” and dead-end trail of thoughts. She forced herself to stop thinking about the past, and start thinking about the future.

* * *

 

The next day, Doctor Carter was waiting for Claire outside Leon’s room when she got there. He seemed to be on a break, absently stirring at his coffee when he noticed her and Sherry approach, and took a few steps towards them to close the gap before they reached the door.

‘Miss Redfield, I need to talk to you about your friend’s condition,’ he said, motioning for her to follow him, away from the room. Claire was confused at first, but she knew the Doctor wouldn’t have taken the time to wait for her if it wasn’t important.

‘Wait here, Sherry,’ she said, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder before following Doctor Brown. He started talking as they walked towards his office.

‘There was an… _incident_ , with Leon last night,’ he said, talking as if he was treading on unstable ground. Claire didn’t try to moderate the surge of worry that his words provoked from her; it wasn’t a secret before the Doctor how much she cared for him.

‘Is he alright?’ she asked, her mind immediately jumping to the worst possibilities, like a complication with his treatment, or his condition worsening where it should be getting better, even though from the way Doctor Carter spoke and the words that he chose, it didn’t seem like the case was so severe.

‘He’s recovering as expected,’ Doctor Carter said, shaking his free hand dismissively. ‘The matter isn’t about his physical health, Miss Redfield. Last night, nurses that were present described him going through what we think was a panic attack. From their reports, it seems like Leon woke up during the night, which was when a nurse reported getting readings of increased heartrate from his machine and deciding to check on him. According to her report, her entrance might have been what triggered the panic attack, but he was anxious even before she entered the room.’

Doctor Carter paused for a few seconds, letting the words sink in. Claire was staring at the empty air before her as they walked, almost missing when Doctor Carter stopped at the door of his office, one hand in his pocket, the other, still holding the cup of coffee he hadn’t touched at all, reaching up to adjust his glasses. He watched Claire with an empathetic frown.

‘We’re afraid he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress,’ he said, finally. ‘Now, I haven’t asked him about what happened to him yet, because I want you to be present when he does. I believe that, in the likely chance that talking about his experiences triggers a flashback or another panic attack, your presence might help calm him down.’

Claire nodded, trying not to look as vacant as she felt. It was odd, feeling this way. She expected herself to be stronger than this, to jump at the chance of supporting Leon through this, but to say that she wasn’t scared would have been fooling herself. It wasn’t necessarily a rational fear, but it was there whether she liked it or not, and it seemed like it was palpable enough for Doctor Carter to notice.

‘You might need the help too, Claire,’ he said. It didn’t slip Claire’s attention that he had been referring to Leon and now her by their first names. She preferred it, she realised, over continuously being called “Miss Redfield.” And he was right, she definitely needed the help. And if she was to help Leon, she thought, she had to pull herself together then and there.

She inhaled slow and deep, and exhaled swiftly, straightening up and looking at Doctor Carter with a renewed fire in her eyes.

‘I can do this.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Doctor Carter to look vaguely like Laurence Fishburne, but maybe less badass.
> 
> Now that we have *two* well-meaning supporting characters in the mix, doesn't it seem like the time to introduce some external conflict? ;)


	7. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to take this chance to clear up some things about the canon I'm going with.  
> Because the overlaps between the 1st and 2nd runs don’t really make sense, I decided to overrule a few things that happen in the game for the sake of narrative cohesion:  
> 1\. Mr. X or the Tyrant was mostly after Leon, and Claire only came across him briefly, in a couple of key moments.  
> 2\. Claire arrived at the lab and left it before Leon, as she managed to gain some ground on him while he was unconscious.  
> 3\. Claire could develop a cure for Sherry without the virus sample, and therefore without triggering the self-destruct sequence before Leon could get there.  
> 4\. Anette Birkin does not die when Sherry is cured since she’s not harmed at that point, and instead dies after telling Leon about Ada.  
> 5\. To balance out the amount of shit flung at Claire and Leon, let’s say that while Leon was the main target of the Tyrant and had to fight William Birkin in the West lab, Claire was the one who had to deal with his other versions, the fight against stage 1 G being a more important narrative beat in Claire and Sherry’s story. Leon does fight him, but only incapacitates him and he doesn’t fall into the abyss until his encounter with Claire.  
> 6\. Leon was the first to the police station, so he had to deal with most of the threats there, while Claire got ahead of him in the sewers and in the labs, having to deal with most of the creatures there. Two of the three lickers arrived at the police station after Leon left, and at the labs after Claire left.  
> 7\. Zombie bites didn’t actually happen, since those exist more to serve the gameplay, and in really one bite would probably doom our protagonists if we’re going by classic zombie rules. They managed to achieve that because of point 6.  
> 8\. I honestly can’t come up with ways to make the rest of the overlap-problems make sense.  
> Hope I didn’t overthink this. I wish I didn’t have to, and Capcom just did a better job making the runs more distinct, although I understand why they might not have. Making games is hard, people.

News reports of what happened to Raccoon City start spreading roughly a day after the destruction of Umbrella labs’ secret underground facilities. On one channel, a female newscaster delivers the devastating news with the well-practiced, calm and collected tone of a seasoned professional.

_‘In the early hours of the morning, large fires started spreading within the confines of Raccoon City. Helicopter footage shows that the fire has now expanded to most of the city, as local firefighters never showed up to put out the initial fires. Officials claim that the city is “beyond saving,” and is expected to burn to the ground within the week. Raccoon City was furthermore declared as a hazard zone, and emergency rescuers are unable to approach the area for the extraction of any potential survivors.’_

On the radio, a listener phones in to a talk show to share his opinions on the matter.

_‘The whole “random fires in Raccoon City” ordeal just screams government coverup to me. The entire city has gone dark a few days ago, and no one was going in or out of that city! I’m telling you, something sinister happened there, some kind of fuckup of epic proportions, and now whoever was responsible – and I’m not necessarily saying it was the government, but I’m definitely thinking it – is trying to cover their asses by getting rid of the evidence and burning that whole shithole to the ground.’_

Meanwhile, in a more religious community’s local TV, a pastor goes on about the biblical nature of Raccoon City’s destruction, believing it to be the sign of the end times. He is dismissed by many for the sake of preventing mass panic.

That morning, Angela Brown forgets all about her breakfast as the news begin their report on the incident. She realises then that if she hadn’t been flagged down by Claire and forced to return to her hometown to save Leon, she would have died in Raccoon City along with the thousands of poor souls that were being consumed by the flames she’s watching through her TV screen. In a way, by saving them, she herself was also saved.

Further away, in the hospital, Leon Kennedy watches the newsfeed from his bed with a confusing mixture of shock and relief. The images of the city on fire take him back to barely two nights ago, when he was still there, the unluckiest rookie on the worst first day one could never even imagine.

Claire Redfield feels his grip tighten on her hand as similar thoughts to his go through her mind. That could have been them. That could have been her and Leon and Sherry if they hadn’t managed to escape when they did. How many people were still alive, holed up and trapped by those creatures, hoping for salvation?

Sherry Birkin buries her head in Claire’s shoulder, unable to watch any more footage of her home, up until very recently, going up in flames. She is vaguely aware that somehow everything that happened to Raccoon City had to do with her parents’ work, but she doesn’t know the details.

A city burns to the ground right before the country’s eyes, and no one can do a thing about it. And no one can know what really happened there – they have to make sure of that.


	8. The Only Ones Who Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, people!

When Claire had come into his hospital room that morning, she immediately went to sit next to him on the bedside and gave him a huge hug, which at first surprised him, but once she explained that Doctor Carter had told her about his episode, Leon let himself melt into her arms.

He was so overwhelmed at that moment with the kind of affection and care she had been showing him ever since their escape, that when she pulled away, he couldn’t look up at her right away. When this worried her, he quickly looked up to show he that yes, everything was alright, that he was hiding a smile and a slight blush, not more pain and distress. Claire’s frown made way for a relieved smile, and for a few long seconds, nothing else was said, and Leon just stared at Claire gratefully, and she stared back at him with a smile still lingering on her strawberry lips.

Leon felt his face grow even pinker, and looked away with an embarrassed chuckle.

‘Doctor Carter wants to talk to us about… well, everything,’ she said. Leon nodded. The Doctor had already approached him about that, and he couldn’t exactly object to a doctor’s wishes, even though he couldn’t see him believing his story. Leon wouldn’t. ‘I think we should give it a shot.’

‘Think he’d believe us?’ He muttered, absently rubbing his left forearm, which was in a sling to take the stress off of his injured shoulder. The pain, still present, was numbed by some pretty good painkillers, and he accredited his seemingly heightened emotional state to them as well.

‘I think that there’s a chance he will, and if he does, then he’ll be able to help you even more, and…’ she trailed off, this time averting her gaze first. Leon had an idea about what she was about to say, but didn’t press her. ‘I just think it would be a good thing, for all of us, if someone like him heard our story. I already told Sheriff Brown about what I went through.’

Leon’s eyebrows shot up.

‘You did?’ he asked. ‘How did she take it?’

Claire shrugged.

‘She didn’t treat us like we were crazy,’ she said. ‘I think that’s a good sign.’

Leon thought so too, but he didn’t have many recollections of the Sheriff, other than some hazy images from when they were helping him get to her car. Even so, someone like her on their side, next to the good doctor, would be a tremendous help.

* * *

 

It was sometime after lunch, and while Claire and Sherry went to grab something, Leon remained in his bed, alone with his thoughts once more. Although this time, with the sun shining outside and the knowledge that he and his friends were safe, his thoughts didn’t take him to the usual, dark places. Instead, he was pondering their next steps, given that they manage to convince the doctor and the sheriff to believe them.

Before he could get very far with that, a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black suit stepped into his hospital room, mid-adjustment of his shirt cuffs. He stopped at the end of Leon’s bed, his feet kept apart at shoulder width, hands linked before him, shoulders squared: the stance of a disciplined soldier. As he stood there, his entire body facing Leon, blocking the window from view, his considerable size seemed accentuated, and Leon repressed a shudder as anxiety reared its ugly head, an intruder on what started out as a perfectly nice day.

‘Leon Kennedy,’ the man didn’t ask, but stated. Leon glanced sideways towards the closed door before looking back at the figure in front of him. ‘On Tuesday, 29th of September, you entered Raccoon City and witnessed _sick_ people. You saw that they were behaving _irrationally,_ and were at a _weakened_ state, slowly _dying._ You also saw that this peculiar disease that has spread through the city has crippled its infrastructure. You were attacked by desperate looters, as the situation became so _dire_ that these diseased people became _desperate_ , which, combined with their irrational state of mind, made them _very_ dangerous. You finally made your escape on foot, as all the roads leading out of the city were blocked or otherwise untraversable.’

Leon’s eyes got rounder and rounder as the man talked, _told_ him what he’d been through, and yes, he got the message. This man knew exactly what happened to Raccoon City, he probably even had a fairly accurate idea of what happened specifically to Leon that night, and he wanted him to deny it all. To spread a false narrative, and cover up the truth behind it all. He didn’t expect this, but he wasn’t surprised, either.

’Am I correct?’ If the man’s question was loaded, then his stoic stare was the gun barrel, aimed right at Leon.

’What if you’re not?’ Leon almost had to squeeze the words through his throat. The tense eye-contact the man had established before he began talking was still unbroken, but the height difference between the two favoured the stranger by design.

There was no clear change in the man’s expression at his question.

’Make no mistake, Mr. Kennedy, Doctor Carter, or anyone else who might ask, will only hear what I just told you, or nothing at all,’ he replied, finally. A threat, or at least the next best thing. Leon’s eyes shifted from the man’s face to the end of his bed as he considered his options. He was injured, weakened by blood-loss, fever, and the medication used to ease his pain, essentially bedridden. This man seemed like he could put him in his place with ease, even if he wasn’t in such a bad state.

’Are you threatening me?’ he asked. At this point whether the man was threatening him or not wasn’t exactly what was really at question: it was what exactly he planned to do if Leon chose to disobey.

’I am merely presenting to you your options,’ said the man, almost nonchalantly. ’You can either cooperate, or you can come with me to somewhere where you can’t spread your story to anyone who cares.’

Just as he thought. While he normally might have had a chance at evading the man, with how things were, there was no way he could make it to the door before he did, and even if he could, he couldn’t make it much further than that. He was _that_ vulnerable, and the man was taking full advantage of that fact. Leon tried not to let the man see just how frustrated he had become as he stared back at him, not saying a word.

’I won’t be far, Mr. Kennedy,’ the man eventually said, taking a couple of steps towards the door before pausing and looking back at Leon. ’Don’t make this harder than it has to be,’ he said, but this time, his words didn’t sound like a threat so much as a genuine plea.

Leon watched him leave the room with a barely contained scowl, and deflated back onto his pillow with a frustrated sigh, staring at the ceiling as if it was his worst enemy. There seemed to be no choice at the moment, but to do as the man said, even if it hurt them in the short term. He’d have to play the long game when it came to these people, but even then... how far did this go? Was this man from an independent organization, or did he work for the government? Could he have been bluffing? He highly doubted that. As it stood, there was no way to know if he could ever stand a chance against whoever this man represented.

A knock on the door made him snap out of it and direct his gaze from the ceiling to the door.

’Leon, it’s me and the Doctor,’ he heard Claire say through the door. Leon sat up again, relatively painlessly despite how quickly he did it.

’Uh, come in,’ he blurted out, still a bit disoriented by how quickly everything seemed to be happening.

The door opened and Claire stepped in, followed by the Doctor. Claire rushed over to the chair at his right, clasping his good hand between her hands, and looking straight into his eyes.

’This is it, Leon. Tell him everything,’ she said. She seemed so determined, so ready to be done with it all, to be relieved. Leon had to look away, opening his mouth as if to say something, but he didn’t even know what to say. Claire seemed to misinterpret this as worry, because the next thing he knew she had her hand on his cheek, turning his head gently back towards her. His eyes still lingered on the far corner of his bed. ’It’s ok. I’m right here.’

Leon pressed his lips together and shifted his gaze to Dr Carter at first, then, finally, at Claire. He replayed in his mind the words of his visitor: the fake story he wanted him to tell, the implied threat, the seemingly genuine plea for him not to make things “harder than they have to be.”

For now, he would play by his rules. In the short term, he’d lose, he’s put himself at a disadvantage, but he’d gain them some time to figure out _who_ the man was, and who he worked for.

The Doctor sat down on a chair he placed at the end of Leon’s bed, and looked at him expectantly.

‘Start from the beginning, whenever you’re ready,’ he said, nodding towards Leon. 

Leon took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. When he began talking he looked mostly at Claire, glancing at the doctor only fleetingly, when he felt he absolutely had to.

He began with how he was going to start at RPD, and how he was told to stay away, but after a while, when he still didn’t hear word from the Police, he decided to check things out for himself. So far, so good.

The part about the gas station, that was where he first had to start bending the truth. He replaced the shambling corpses with “crazed looters,” played down their cannibalistic tendencies, and said they favoured using simple weapons, of course, instead of their teeth. _Rarely guns_ , he improvised, _they just couldn’t use those effectively_ , he explained; _I don’t know why,_ he added, because he just didn’t have the time to come up with a reason, and honestly, he was just a rookie cop, how should he know? _Your guess is as good as mine._

It was at around that point that Claire’s expression shifted from that of empathy and determination to shocked and disbelieving, and he looked back at her apologetically, hoping that she’d see just how much he knew she didn’t like it, and neither did he.

From there what he described was mostly along the lines of what the man from earlier told him to say. He avoided going into details whenever he could, and when the doctor asked of his injuries, he made up stories about being ambushed by thugs, or falling down in slightly different circumstances than how he really fell – several times, actually. He also decided that they weren’t, in fact, just trapped in a police station, and were instead travelling through the city, trying to hide from the looters, who weren’t completely mindless creatures after all.

The story held up in some places unexpectedly well. It made sense that the police would fail in this scenario, as they wouldn’t (Leon hoped) just massacre civilians, and by the time they would get desperate enough to even try to do that, it would have been too late. It was harder to explain how the madness spread without getting dangerously close to the territory of flesh eating monsters. He once again used the “I’m no expert” card and only decided to start explaining the plot holes he’d accidentally dig for himself if the Doctor specifically asked for him to clear something up. Half-truths usually did the trick.

The big old problem with this, however, was that nothing he could come up with compared to the terror of the truth: the rotting corpses, the disformed monstrosities, the inhuman gurgling sounds they made that he so often heard before he could even see them, the heart-clenching fear and anxiety with which he walked the dark, bloodstained corridors of the police station, the overwhelming panic that consumed him when he was grabbed by the throat and lifted off the ground by the gigantic, invulnerable Tyrant…

He’d thought that was it. That the creature would crush his throat right then and there, and that’s how he’d die. His words died in his throat mid-sentence, and he reached towards the bruised skin of his neck, at first only brushing against it with his fingers, then slowly and lightly wrapping his hands around his throat as he stared at the space before him.

He saw the flash of the truck’s lights, heard the squeal of the tires, the roar of the engine, felt the vibrations as it collided with the creature, but the second or two it took for him to hit the ground and start breathing again were mostly black for him. Everything had happened so quickly.

‘Leon.’

When he snapped out of it, he saw Claire was much closer to him, hear hands grasping the side of his bed as she looked at him with eyebrows pulled together.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘How about we take a break? Doctor?’ She turned to look at Dr Carter, who nodded and stood up, saying something about how he would be back in bit, and left. When the door closed behind him, Claire pulled her seat even closer to Leon’s bed, and leaned closer, her worry laced with a tinge of anger she was no doubt supressing for his sake. Leon’s heart did a backflip. Did he deserve her?

‘Leon,’ she said, kindly, but firmly. ‘That was all bullshit, and we’ll talk about that in a second, but I need you to tell me what made you go all glassy-eyed on us just now.’

For a few seconds, Leon could only stammer, backtracking in his mind to figure out what it was he had been talking about.

‘Back… back at the Police Station, in the parking garage, I uh… the _thing,_ the Tyrant… it had me,’ he explained, voice strained and barely above a whisper, and he once again averted his gaze from her eyes. ‘I thought I was going to die, but… Ada, she’d gotten hold of a Swat truck and slammed it into the wall, and I… well, I wasn’t dying anymore.’ Very quietly, he added, ‘She saved me.’

She must’ve seen him slipping away into his memories again, because the next thing he knew, she was holding his free hand and turning his face to look at her with her hand on his cheek. The look she was giving him was in no way one of the soft, loving and empathetic looks she’d given him before, and instead it was hard and stern, but still giving off the impression that she _cared._

‘Look at me, Leon,’ she said. ‘You’re right here, alive, with me. Don’t go back to Raccoon City. Stay with me.’

Shit, she was right. Leon had already felt physically weak, and now he felt mentally weak, too, for checking out on Claire, for letting things get to him while she held it together, and for making her have to work to keep both of them sane, instead of only having to worry about herself.

‘I’m sorry, Claire,’ he said, sinking back into his pillow. He felt tired, all of a sudden. He’d been talking to the doctor for what seemed like hours, but what was more likely no longer than ten minutes, and Claire had gone with it, only ever saying anything to _confirm_ his story. ‘I couldn’t tell him the truth.’

Claire couldn’t hide the harshness of her tone.

‘Why not? Because he wouldn’t believe it? Because… because he’d think you’re crazy? Leon, I’m right here with you, I would have told him everything, too, and if he found you were crazy, well, he’d have to find me crazy, too, because we’re in this _together._ ’

‘You’re right, of course you’re right,’ Leon said, sitting back up to be able to face Claire easier. ‘And I’m very thankful, but it’s not like that.’

Claire crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat.

‘Then what was it?’

Leon glanced towards the door, then the window, then across the whole room, trying to see if there was any sort of listening device or camera he could spot that the man might have placed. Claire, confused, also looked around.

‘Now you’re just being weird, Leon,’ she said.

‘I know, I-’ Leon began to say, a bit too loud a bit too sudden, and took a deep breath to calm himself down, before continuing, much quieter this time. ‘There was a man, I think he might be listening.’

‘You’re not making any sense,’ Claire said. Suddenly, her expression softened, and she reached to put her hand over Leon’s. ‘Are you sure you’re… in the right condition for this right now? I didn’t want to say this, but you’re on some pretty strong painkillers, so, you know…’

Leon pulled back and shook his head, bringing his hand out from beneath hers and to his face. She wasn’t completely wrong; he really _did_ need to clear his head.

‘You were right, I do need a break,’ he whispered, finally, and dropped his hand from his face to look up at Claire. ‘Do you think I’d be allowed to take a walk?’

Claire stood up, and that same, soft-smiled look of worry from before returned to her features, and Leon couldn’t help but smile back, meekly.

‘I’m going to see what Sherry’s up to,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask a doctor about letting you walk around.’

‘Thanks, Claire,’ Leon said, feeling almost bashful. She left without either of them saying another word, and he felt anxiety set in as the door shut behind her, and he was alone in his room once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully it won't take months for me to upload the next chapter. If you see any mistakes, sorry about that, but I really just wanted to get this out there already.


	9. Run Like Hell

Claire felt as if the air got thicker as she approached Leon’s room with Sherry in tow. People around her whispered loudly or looked around with a mix of confusion and shock, and the fact that she didn’t know why was enough to unsettle her.

She tried to dismiss it, explaining to herself that she was just being paranoid, which she thought was understandable, given the circumstances, and that there’s hardly anything that could go wrong now that they’re so far from Raccoon City. Raccoon City, which was in the process of burning to the ground.

What’s the worst that could happen in a _hospital_ , now that zombies were well within the realm of possibility? Flesh eating monstrosities that _just won’t stay dead_ dwarf most “bad things” in comparison.

When she finally stepped into Leon’s room, she realised she’d been too unimaginative.

Leon’s bed was vacant, its immediate area in disarray. The blanket was crumpled up on the floor, and the contents of the nightstand were either toppled over or on the ground with the blanket.

Questions piled onto the pre-existing questions she had for Leon, and despite his recent, odd behaviour, her worry for him – a constant presence in her life lately, is seemed – resurfaced.

Doctor Carter stood at the end of the bed in conversation with what seemed like a security guard. He cut his words short when he saw Claire enter and turned his attention to her.

‘Ah, Claire,’ he said. He introduced the security guard, whose name she immediately forgot, and before Claire could blurt out any potentially senseless combination of questions she wanted to ask at the same time, he went on to explain the situation. ‘I know that this might be a shocking scene, so I’ll give it to you straight. Leon has been seen by bystanders running out of this room, followed by a “large man in a suit.” Some also claim they heard sounds of conflict from the room just before that happened.’

‘Wh… Uh…’ Claire was still having trouble taking it in. Leon, being chased by a mystery man? This begged the question: ‘Where is he?’

‘We’re still trying to figure that out,’ Doctor Carter said. ‘Why don’t you go with Mr Eckles here to the security room? I’d come with you, but I’ve got patients to attend to.’

Claire could only nod wordlessly and follow along as the security guard, _Mr Eckles_ , apparently, led her to the security room, her grip tightening on Sherry’s hand, who seemed worried and confused.

Sheriff Brown was waiting for them at the door of the security room. She gave Claire a knowing look as she approached, but otherwise didn’t speak until they were all within the room, reviewing the footage.

The tape was already at the point where it all started. It was all fairly straightforward: Leon left his room in a hurry, followed by a single man and ran, stumbled, and hobbled through half the hospital, chased by an increasing number of people in black suits, as he dodged and weaved, occasionally pulling a gurney or a chair behind him as he ran, slowing down his pursuers. He actually managed to shake off a few sometimes, increase the distance between himself and the suits for just long enough. Finally, he disappeared through the glass doors leading to the back parking-lot, and that was the last any camera caught of him.

Claire frowned. Leon had only been wearing loose hospital pyjamas, no footwear, and the dark blotch around his left shoulder she could see in the later footage could only mean that his wound reopened.

‘He couldn’t have gotten far,’ Angela said. ‘Not in that condition, and not dressed like that. People would notice someone that looked like they just escaped a hospital.’

‘Those people,’ Claire said. ‘What do we do if they caught him? Who _are_ they, anyway?’

‘Your bet’s as good as mine, honestly,’ Angela replied, with a shrug. ‘Take me through when you last say him.’

Claire’s stomach clenched, and she shifted her gaze downwards, biting her lip.

‘During the night, he… he had an episode,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t there, but the nurses said he freaked out.  Dr Carter suggested we tell him what exactly happened in Raccoon City, you know, how he got his injuries and all, so he would know how to help. Leon seemed ok with it, and I left to tell Dr Carter that we’re ready to talk, and I thought that would be it. But when we got back to his room, he seemed much more hesitant. He _lied_ , Angela! Lied through his teeth! I couldn’t believe my ears, but I just let him talk and talk and talk and say all that _bullshit_ that I knew was untrue, and I’m pretty sure Dr Carter wasn’t entirely convinced by it, either. Eventually, he just trailed off, with that thousand-yard stare, so the Doctor said we should take a break.

I asked him what the hell just happened, you know? And he was all over the place, he made no sense! He said something about a man, that he might be listening, and at that point I kinda had enough of it, so I told him I would go get Sherry, and that’s when I last saw him.’

Angela rewound the security tape. As the footage rolled backwards, she turned to Claire.

‘That man he mentioned,’ she said. ‘Do you think it’s the one running after him from his room?’

Claire’s racing mind, still preoccupied by how much Leon’s behaviour had upset her, stopped in its tracks.

‘Y-yes, I guess it could,’ she said.

Angela stopped rewinding the footage, and the screens now showed a mostly empty, neon-lit corridor. It must have been late in the night or early in the morning. The footage started moving faster, showing a nurse walking past Leon’s door, then another one, who stopped in her tracks just as she passed his door and turned around to step inside. Soon, more people flooded into the room, stayed there for a bit, then left.

‘That must’ve been when he had that episode you mentioned,’ Angela said. Nothing interesting happened on the footage until Claire left to get Dr Carter. Minutes after she left, a man in a black suit entered Leon’s room, and only left several minutes later.

‘Shit,’ Claire muttered. Why didn’t Leon say anything about that?

The man had returned just after she left the room, again, and that was about a minute before Leon bust out of the room and took off.

Angela paused the footage and turned to look at Claire.

‘I think we’ve seen enough,’ she said. ‘I’ll get one of my subordinates to go through the footage and find more of these shady people in suits and try to see if Leon showed up on any other surrounding CCTV cameras. You and I need to go out and look for him.’

Claire let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. They already lost so much time looking at the footage and deliberating, and Leon was still in danger. For all they knew, he could have been caught already. The thought alone caused her stomach to clench again. Despite everything, all she wanted was to see him safe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but better than nothing! I've kinda lost momentum with this story, but I'll try to keep it going, it's just going to take a while. Thanks for your patience, those of you who have been around a while now!


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